


Save Our Souls

by Jacen



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, But romance is optional?, F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Unfinished, the writing on the arm one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10514772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacen/pseuds/Jacen
Summary: People across the world-and occasionally across space itself-find themselves bonded to one another.  They call this Connection, and their partners Connects.  Until she turns thirteen, there is no writing on Lena's arm.  When it comes, everything changes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Supercorp fans! I should get this out of the way first-I have seen exactly three whole episodes of Supergirl and none of them were from season two. I get my updates because of all of the wlw on tumblr who regularily go nuts on Monday nights and flood my dash with these gorgeous dames. Are they cute and in love or what? I had this idea on my way to work the other day and just had to get it all down. I apologize for any mistakes or misunderstandings on my part-what I don't know from canon I'm parsing together from half-remembered comic books and wikipedia articles!

Lena has been drawing the shapes for as long as she can remember; lines, then circles, then dots to finish. It’s so simple that she can (and has, don’t tell her mother) drawn it in her sleep. It’s somewhere in all of her schoolbooks, sketched onto the heel of her runners. The shapes are as instinctive as writing her own name.

Unlike her name, they have never changed. 

It is her thirteenth birthday and she is idly sketching the shapes out on scratch paper as she tries her best intimidating glare on her math textbook. As an inanimate object it is guaranteed to win this staredown, but it is a better channel for her resentment than her other options. Her adoptive mother Lillian is downstairs, pecking away at journal article on the computer. Her adoptive father, Lionel, is in his office down the hall, moving money in a trumped up game of three card monte. Her brother Lex is off somewhere else, school or work or travel, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he is not here and she is doing trigonometry on her birthday. Not that she dislikes trigonometry, but Danica Preston’s birthday was last week and she and her friends went bowling and had cake.

So Lena heard.

The words on the page of the math book swim. She reaches out and snaps it shut, pushing her forehead down on the cardboard of the cover. Her face is suddenly heated with embarrassment at the reminder of how different she is from her classmates and all of the ways they never let her forget it. She is pale, she is scrawny, she is adopted, she is smart. She is bad at sports, good at math, bad at art, good at being the teachers pet (but if the teacher didn’t like her, no one would, so she clings to that no matter how much grief she gets about it.). 

Most crucial to her peers, her left arm is clear and unmarked. She envies this more than anything else, that every last one of them is Connected. She is the only one who never glances down at her arm to giggle at a secret message or hurriedly write out a question. Lena speaks and understands only one language-Danica reads three, because her Connect is Swiss. As tears patter on her textbook, Lena darkly hopes that Danica’s Connect is smelly and hideous. She knows he must be boring and stupid, because otherwise he would not have matched with Danica. It is a cold comfort.

The skin of her left arm crawls as she sits up. She doesn’t look-it’s probably just her hair dragging along her wrist again. People like her aren’t so rare, anyway. It’s theorized their Connect died young, but no one’s worked out how to prove that theory. Instead, she glances at the scrap paper.

_Help me._

Lena stares. The shapes are still there, but now they are also words. She closes her eyes, counts to ten, then opens them again. 

_Help me._

Eyes shut once more, she flips her left arm over on the desk, exposing her forearm. Taking a deep breath, she centres herself, then opens her eyes.

_Hello?_

New shapes, but somehow familiar. She copies them automatically onto her paper, then raises her pen over her arm. There is etiquette to be considered. First you introduce yourself. 

_Hello? I’m Lena._

The odd shapes overtake her writing almost immediately. 

_Where are you? Who are you? Where am I?_

Etiquette has never covered this. She’s not quite certain how to respond. It’s considered rude to ask too many questions, but the strange writing scrambles along her skin nevertheless. 

_I'm Lena Luthor. I’m Your Connect._. She tries to head off further questions before they come-there’s a sense of panic in the way her Connect is writing.

 _What planet is this?_. Things fall into place a bit. She’s read very little about Connects from other worlds. Some aliens have made contact with humans through whatever mechanism makes Connecting possible in the first place. Science has been unable to explain it thus far. She never thought she’d be one of those linked to another species.

Her pen hesitates over her arm for a moment. _Earth._

\---------------------------

All things considered, she’s impressed that she managed to keep her Connect a secret as long as she has. She’s fourteen and a half when she steps out of the shower and almost directly onto Lillian’s feet. Her mother doesn’t say anything, but catches her left arm and watches the alien script scrawl from elbow to wrist. 

Lena does not know what to do, so she tries to hide her whole body under a bath towel. Lilian fixes her with a glare once she’s wrapped herself. “Get dressed and come to your fathers office.”

Most parents are happy to learn that their child has Connected. She reminds herself repeatedly of that while she picks out a sleeveless shirt and a skirt. It means they’re normal, just like everyone else. Of course, Connecting to an alien is the opposite of normal, even if Kara is bubbly and sweet and trying so hard not to be strange. She takes out a pen after straightening her top and quickly writes _My parents are reading,_ on her wrist. 

A stickman manifests at her elbow, it’s wide mouth stitched shut. Lena laughs, then tugs her hair into a ponytail and pads off down the hall to the study. Lillian and Lionel are there, seated in the green leather chairs by the fireplace. Lena positions herself on the couch, elbows in, knees bent. If it were anyone but her parents, she wouldn’t be so withdrawn but they are the last people she wanted to know about Kara.

Lionel speaks first, leaning forward in his seat. “Show me?” Her throat closes with sudden emotion at the kindness in his tone and she offers him her arm immediately. It is embarrassing how the slightest niceties work on her.

Kara has replaced the drawing with a painstakingly written “Hello Mrs and Mr Luthor” in English. Lionel chuckles when he sees it.

“Very polite,” he says, turning Lena’s arm back and forth. “What do you know about them?”

“Have it write it in its own language,” Lillian says, her tone much chillier than Lionel's. Lena feels a burn in her cheeks, but uses her finger to write the characters for ‘Kryptonian’ on her wrist. 

There is a delay this time. Lena does not blame Kara for being hesitant. Connect aside, only her adoptive family knows what she is. Lena’s heart pangs when the writing begins along her forearm, English giving way to careful Kryptonian calligraphy. It is the same words again, but with each stroke Lena can see Lionel’s face fall. His vanishing goodwill feels like a physical ache.

“So he’s an alien,” he says once Kara is done writing. He stares at Lena’s arm contemplatively.

“She,” she mumbles, looking away when he peers at her. 

“She,” he repeats. 

“At least there’s no chance of offspring,” Lillian mutters, turning to gaze into the fireplace. 

Lena stares at her wrist, wishing she could retreat entirely, possibly under her bed, for the rest of her life. Connects were often eventually romantic, a thought that had barely crossed her mind until Lillian laid it out so crudely. A person who’d known you your entire life had a distinct advantage over other potential partners. 

“No need for that,” Lionel says, releasing Lena’s arm. “They haven’t even met.” She breathed, looking down at Kara’s writing. It hadn’t changed. “Besides, we already expected this!”

A humming began in Lena’s ears, the sound of her blood rushing through her head. This had the sound of a longer conversation she was only just being included in. Lillian turned back from the fireplace, arching an eyebrow at him. “Well, not for certain. She only ever wrote the one thing before.”

Help me. Kara’s plea as she was hurled into the stars, a last effort to find someone waiting for her at the other side of the apocalypse that had destroyed her home. One orphan reaching out to another. The remnants of Kara’s family had been looking for her, had found her a mother and a father and a sister to love her. Lena had been left a ward of the state, no one interested in the brooding little girl who drew strange pictures all day. Not until Lionel had come and asked after her specifically. Lena bows her head. “Is that why-” she begins, blinking rapidly.

“Of course. You know we’ve always had an interest in aliens,” Lionel says, making it sound like an academic curiousity instead of the venomous truth. “Now we can communicate with them!”

Lena wraps her arm around her body. She is the only one who could write to Kara, but that is little comfort. Lionel looks at her with a jolly smile, as though he hadn’t just told her that she’d only been adopted because of her bizarre Connect. Lillian’s unreadable expression is condescending in a way only she could be. She has a mother, a father, a brother, but she is not certain at all of their love.

“I can only read Kryptonian,” Lena protests. 

“And write it,” Lillian says. “And speak it, if you have a tutor.”

Lena stares at them, then down at her arm. The formal Kryptonian writing has gone. Kara has scribbled ‘is it okay?’ In it's place. Lena pulls her arm against her stomach again and hunches in on herself. “I don’t want to,” she says. 

Lillian frowns. “You will.”

\---------------------------

She is seventeen, sitting in the massive family garage, staring at her car. Her brother is under the hood, chatting excitedly at her about Luthercorp as he clanks around with this and that tool. It is summer break, which means her parents had to bring her home from boarding school. Lex is trying to unhook the tracking and control device Lillian had put on the engine, but since it’s been more than ten minutes, Lena doubts he will succeed.

“Why can’t you just wait a year?” He asks from the depths of the engine. Writing scribbles along her wrist. She glances down at the Kryptonian. 

_Does cardamom taste like cinnamon?_

Almost everyone who can afford it takes a trip to meet their Connect once they turn eighteen. Her Facebook and Instagram feeds feature a steady trickle of reunion pictures as the people she knows from school and summer camp find their other person. They talk about the things they knew and the things they didn’t, the joys of finally meeting one another face to face. She’s been blocking them one by one. If her parents get so much as a hint that she’s considering going east to find Kara, they’ll get her internship pulled and pack her off to some technology camp for introvert thirteen year olds. Her plan is to go at the end of the summer, before she’s sent back to the campus in Ireland. 

_Not as spicy. Try it in warm milk. Don’t eat the seeds._

“Because,” she finally answers Lex. It’s flippant enough that he emerges from under the hood to smirk at her, a look she returns in kind. Her mask is perfect. His crumbles immediately. 

“Can you write something for me before I go back to Metropolis?” She can’t miss the manic look about him as he ducks back into the car. “For Superman?”

He always asks her for this, so casually, as though the copy he’ll hand her later isn’t subtly frightening. She’s been subverting him all this time, though she knows one day he’ll run across a xenolinguist who will tell him that all of his threats and posturing have been rewritten to pleas for leniency and requests that Superman try to end Lex’s schemes without harming him. He might be a maniac, but he is still her brother. Hopefully he’ll remember that when he finds out what she’s done. 

“Of course,” she answers. 

_So much spice! They’re stuck to my teeth!_

Lena closes her eyes and exhales through her nose. _Told you,_ she writes back. No matter how Lionel and Lillian go on about aliens and the threat they pose to humanity, Lena will always have proof that at least one is a larger threat to a tray of cookies than any human being. 

“Do you think it knows Superman?” Lex asks, suddenly practically on top of her. She flinches, pulling her sleeve over the writing on her arm. Every time her family acknowledges Kara it’s snide, probing, always pushing Lena to refer to the alien ‘correctly’ as a thing, not a person. As though the Kryptonian writing on her arm isn’t math formulas and musical notes and ‘I saw a puppy today’. She can’t help but compare it to Lex’s Connect. When Lex found Rajiv, Lionel paid for a plane ticket, an apartment, documentation. Rajiv’s in the labs at Luther Corp now, happier than he was at tech college in Bangaluru, and Lena sometimes wonders if he’s as crazy as Lex. 

Of course Kara has told Lena about her famous cousin, everything but his human name. She suspects she knows more about Superman than he does, considering Kara apparently used to change his diapers. “She hasn’t said,” Lena lies. It’s the greatest test of her ability-Lionel is hardly a challenge and Lillian will decide she’s lying arbitrarily, but Lex’s keen stare always seems to pick her apart. She meets his eyes with confidence. He is the one who turns first. 

“I think I got all of it.” He gestures towards the car. “But you might want to take a few test drives, in case.”

She nods, feeling the writing scratch again. Only a month to go.

\---------------------------

As twenty first birthdays go, it’s a bit of a rager. Engineers, they say, are like that. Lena can’t even tuck herself off in a corner-as the guest of honour she’s front and centre at the head of the table. She’s probably eight beers under (it’s hard to keep track when your glass is never actually empty), someone brought a robot, and she has a sneaking suspicion that Ryan the biotech major may have hired a clown or a stripper.

Or god forbid, a clown stripper. 

At least the classmates who have abducted her to this surprise house party are her friends (though she may be reconsidering Ryan at the moment). They might not be bosom buddies, but they have in-jokes and friendly banter with her. There is mild interdisciplinary rivalry between the mechanical and the civil majors. She feels comfortable among them, even as a ninth beer arrives in her hand. The crowd cheers when she immediately chugs it and that is the tone for the evening.

The clown stripper shows up around beer twelve and for the first time in three years Lena actually wishes she had a car, if only to hide from the very deliberately placed red nose that keeps swinging in her direction. But Lillian destroyed her car (and the two after it) and she knows if she gets another, it will somehow end up exactly the same, no matter how many states are between them. Her parents were very clear about that. So she deflects the red nose with someone else's physics textbook and begins devising her eventual revenge on Ryan. 

By drink twenty-ish (beer became liquor around fourteen) she’s showing off her impeccable Kryptonian script, claiming it’s practise for the xenolinguistics class she is acing. She takes requests in exchange for shots. She writes lewd phrases and argues syntax with someone’s girlfriend until someone else racks up the tequila and she licks-shoots-sucks, spits out the lime and kisses the girl she was just lecturing about verb tenses. Her kissee giggles and Lena grins, looping her fingertip idly along her left arm. 

Drink probably-twenty-one-but-who-knows is a muff dive, and she loudly tells the wielder of the whipping cream that if she sprays any in her hair there will be hell to pay. She’s not sure whose lap they put the shot into, just shoves her face into the fluffy sweet whipped cream and pulls out the shot glass in a move that is far too smooth for how dizzy she is. This shot burns in her chest in spite of the cream. She wipes her face with a clumsy hand, spits out the empty shot glass and upends it on the nearest flat surface. She thinks there is cheering, but her hearing goes fuzzy. Her whole face tingles, sweat breaks out over her brow and she barely bolts for the bathroom in time. 

It’s two forty in the morning when she is finally able to lift her head enough to check the time on her cell phone. Her stomach is still roiling and she wants to go home, but home is...a great distance away and everyone here is drunk. She leans back against the wall, readying herself to call a taxi when someone knocks on the bathroom door.

“Lena?” Ryan drawls. She pushes herself to her feet and turns on the tap, splashing a double palmful of water over her face and neck.

“‘M okay,” she calls to him, patting herself dry with the towel on the back of the door. “Right out.”

“Alright. Cause your rides here.”

She pauses with the towel over her eyes, swaying back against the wall again. Her cheeks are almost purple with embarrassment. She’s gotten so drunk at her own birthday party that her friends are itching to get rid of her. They’ve already called her a taxi, and there’s probably someone waiting in the living room with an apologetic look and her coat. 

There is a burst of laughter when she emerges, but none of it seems directed at her. The party has already moved on without its guest of honour. She checks what’s left of her makeup in a hall mirror, then tries her best to stay standing straight as she rounds the corner into the living room.

No one has her coat. No one is even looking at her. Instead, most of the guests are focused on a new arrival, a cherry-cheeked woman who looks like she might be a tall fourteen year old. Her hair is the colour of fresh honey and it falls down her back in waves. Lena blinks-it’s all she can do for a minute or so-until someone calls ‘there she is!’ And the woman turns around. 

Lena feels her shoulder hit the doorframe before she realizes she’s tipped to the side. The motion catches up with her and her vision blurs briefly, then she focuses again. That pretty face and those rosy cheeks are closing in on her fast. Before she can protest, she’s wrapped in a warm hug, and a voice like bells is murmuring ‘hey’ in her ear. 

Someone touches her arm and Lena looks away from the mystery girl. Her lab partner, the host of this little shindig, looks absolutely chastened as she squeezes Lena’s bicep. “You know your Connect is always invited, right? We would have sent her an message if we knew she was here,” Jasika says, watching Lena for a hint of a reaction.

Her Connect. Lena turns away from Jasika, back to Kara’s bright blush. Kara the alien. Who is here. Now.

“I was out of town,” she says, her arms still around Lena, who realizes that she is literally being held on her feet. “Just got back.”

“How come we’ve never met you before?” Jasika asks Kara the question but stares at Lena as she does.

“She goes to school out of state,” Lena answers quickly. In combination they are terrible liars. “We should go.”

“Yeah.” Kara studies her face, and that rise-and-fall blush picks up again. Lena puts an arm around her shoulders and lets Kara take her weight. Jasika produces her coat and another apology that Lena barely hears because Kara has taken over preparing her for the outdoors, guiding her arms into the coat and zipping up the front. Lena’s wave to her friends is very vague, and the moment they have left the party she leans entirely on Kara again. 

“Why?” She asks at the bottom of the apartment stairwell. Kara leans her against the wall so she can fix her own jacket.

“You wrote ‘help me,” she replies, touching her forearm. “So...I looked you up on Facebook, found out where you were and…” Kara shrugs. “Here I am.”

“Here you are.” There are so many things Lena wants to do, say, hear from Kara. Things she’s been holding back since her mother ruined her vehicle and thus her attempt to meet her Connect three years ago. All those cancelled plane tickets, being pulled off of trains, and that one time she almost made it on the bus until she reached some tiny town in the middle of the night and found Lex waiting outside of the terminal. Her head spins with the memories, until she realizes that the spinning is probably a remnant of the tequila a few seconds before she vomits on the floor in front of Kara. And it had been such a touching moment up until then.

Kara snorts, then checks her pockets and uses a found tissue to dab Lena’s face clean. “Where’s your house?” She asks, guiding Lena around the puddle. 

“I...that way?” Lena guesses.

“Okay,” Kara replies.

\----------------------------

As Lillian sobs in her ear, Lena stares at her off-grey wall and thinks about Rajiv. He’s been in the long term psychiatric ward of the Highmarsh Facility for just short of five months now. Someone will have to pay his bills. She doubts Lex thought that far ahead as he barrelled from ‘quirky’ to ‘mass murdering lunatic’. Picking up a pen, she writes herself a quick note. 

“Lena.” Lillian’s voice is sharp. She must have ignored something important. 

“I’m sorry mother. I wasn’t listening.” The need to provoke her parents...well, parent now...has always been too tempting for her. What had Lionel thought, seeing Superman rushing to his aid after everything he’d said, after everything Lex did?

“Don’t tell me you’re talking to that thing at a time like this.”

Lena’s lips pull back from her teeth. It is not a smile. “I was thinking about Rajiv.”

“Who cares about Rajiv!? Your brother needs US now, not his Connect! His FAMILY.”

Lena’s eyebrow arches and she swallows a multitude of potential responses. Her arm itches with writing, but she leaves her sleeve down for the moment. “Someone has to take care of him,” she points out.

“And we will. We are meeting with the lawyers in the morning and until then I expect you to remain out of sight. You’ll likely have to stand in until we can recruit a new CEO for Luther Corp. i’ll call the transition team after the lawyers.”

She almost protests, points out that she was still talking about Rajiv, then closes her eyes. “Of course, mother.” It doesn’t quite sink in right away that her mother has told her that she will be the CEO of Luther Corp. She’s too busy remembering process for setting up a trust until it hits her and her eyes snap open. “CEO?”

“Interim CEO.”

Lena turns and walks a few paces, already turning over the next steps in her head. “When should I meet you in the morning?”

“Nine-thirty. Your father would have wanted this to be...efficient.” There is almost a discernible emotion in Lillian’s voice.

“I will be there,” Lena replies, just as Lillian hangs up the phone. She sets her own aside, then unbuttons her sleeve and rolls it up to her elbow. 

_Are you okay? Can I come over? I’ll bring-_. Whatever Kara wrote next is unintelligible-it looks like she scratched it out a few times, which means she probably couldn’t decide what exact foodstuffs she wanted to offer.

 _Is your cousin alright?_ Lena writes back, taking a seat on her couch. She had seen the news coverage. Superman had taken a vicious beating from her brother.

_Yes. He went away to think._

Lena rests her fingertips on her wrist, considering what she should say next. _If he needs you to take care of him, you should go._. It’s what she wants to do for Lex, even now. if only he’d given her some indication of how far he’d spun. She should have realized when Rajiv had his breakdown that Lex was soon to follow.

_He has his phone. He knows he can call me whenever. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling._

Lena bows her head, tucking her knees to her chest. _Bad._. She considers her arm for a moment. _You don’t have to come. Every news organization and law enforcement agency has probably got surveillance on my building. It would be dangerous for you._

There is a pause and Lena thinks she may have actually talked Kara out of something for the first time in two years. The feeling does not last much longer. _I’ll get pizza!_

Kara arrives in a car an hour later, like a human, with two pizzas and a giant takeout container full of potstickers. She rides the elevator to Lena’s penthouse, smiling hopefully when she steps out of the compartment. “Got your favourite,” she says, setting the pizza boxes aside in favour of hugging Lena. 

“Thanks,” Lena says, digging her fingers into Kara’s back and shoving her suddenly damp eyes into her Connect’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

Kara drops the potstickers beside them, wrapping her arms even tighter around her friend. “Of course,” she answers, resting her chin against Lena’s temple. Lena shudders hard, then clings to Kara, her tears spilling over silently. She wishes she could wail and carry on as Lillian did on television, but part of her is too angry to let her grief be so self indulgent. 

Their feet shuffle and Kara nudges her a little, until they sink to the couch and settle around one another. Kara’s fingers play through her hair as Lena curls in against her, still shaking with sorrow. Even with her eyes closed she can’t miss Kara’s laser vision going off five times. The smell of burning electronics drifts through the apartment. “Subtle,” she murmurs and Kara giggles a little. “My mother is not going to be happy about that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, that was a weird power surge.” 

Lena sniffles and bunts her head into Kara’s shoulder. “I would have warned you if I knew what he was going to do. So you could tell Kal. I promise, I would never just let my family hurt yours.”

Kara’s hand moves to her neck, tracing little circles along her pulse. “I know you would have. So does Kal,” she says. “And Alex. And my mom. And Kal’s Connect.” She feels Lena slide her arms around her waist. “And like, so many other people back home. Not as many here, I promise. Just some of my coworkers. I stopped wearing short sleeves after that one time, cross my heart. Your reputation in National City is safe from small town gossip.”

Lena’s most of the way into her lap now, pressed as close as she can get. She should be sending messages and making her own preparations for tomorrow, but Kara is warmer and softer and steadier than the rest of the world. For the first time, in spite of everything that’s happened in the last twenty four hours, Lena doesn’t feel like she’s walking on emotional razors. Does everyone else feel like this with their Connect? “Are you sure Kal doesn’t need you?” She has to ask again, because with her family in tatters, clinging to Kara’s only makes sense, and Kara is too nice to leave someone in need. 

Kara’s lips press to the top of her head and Lena feels her limbs go slack with happiness. “Kal’s got his Connect. I want to take care of mine.”

\---------------------------

The hallways flicker with red lights. Lena keeps her left arm bared as she strides ahead of her board of directors and the small assortment of administrative staff who were attending the late meeting. There is a fire extinguisher tucked under her arm. She has very little time to get them out and she must think quickly to evade the cadre of armed men who have stormed the building. Her not-so-secret weapon is fretting half a mile away, prevented from engaging due to the green mineral most of the squad is toting on their persons. 

_Left._. Lena immediately signals the group to follow her around the next left turn, staying ahead of them by several steps. She’s certain the invaders must be close now, just as she’s certain the NCPD is setting up down below. 

The hallway ends at a stairwell. Lena gestures the executives back, then slowly opens the door. She feels writing prickle along her arm, glancing down at it only once she’s sure it’s safe. _Four, two floors down._

Her heart leaps into her throat. She has never wanted to be a hero like the Danvers sisters. A fight seems impossible, especially a fight with four armed men. Theoretically she’s studied self defence, but practically speaking she’s never used it. Talking got her out of most scrapes and the rest proved the benefits of being Connected to Supergirl. She takes the fire extinguisher from under her arm and passes it to Fred, her head of logistics. The group follows her forward again, understanding the need for quiet without any explanation. 

Fred falls in close behind her, descending the stairs as quietly as he can. She hears a shoe scrape on a landing below and motions for those behind her to stop. “Hello?” She calls, starting forward again with Fred at her heels. “Is someone there? All the lights went out?”

_Guns._

She doesn’t really need Kara’s help to remember that. Below there is a general rustling of equipment and feet, then a voice answers her. “NCPD. Can you identify yourself please miss? There are hostile personnel in the building.”

Lena can’t help arching her eyebrow in disbelief. Of all of the weak lies they could have used. “Oh my,” she says breathily, stopping before she and Fred turn the next corner. “I’m Lena Luthor,” she continues, listening hard.

_Careful._

“Miss Luthor, if you will proceed in the direction of my voice we’ll get you out of here.” They haven't gone still. They’re not expecting an attack. 

“Is my liaison in the building or outside?” She continues walking towards the voice, close enough to hear their breathing now. Her heart pounds so hard she can barely think but there are thirty people above her counting on her to get them through this. She must keep her head.

“Come down where we can see you and we’ll take you to him.” If there were any doubts that these are not police, that settles them. Her liaison is detective Sawyer, and at this point she’s had enough dealings with the NCPD that any officer on site at LCorp would know that.

Lena doesn’t answer him. She pauses on the landing, just out of his view, and raises her left wrist to her lips. Hopefully Kara will understand why she’s taking this risk. Hopefully she’ll understand the meaning behind this kiss. Lena holds her wrist to her mouth long enough to make an unmistakeable mark, then takes the extinguisher back from Fred and faces the stairwell. “I’m coming,” she calls ahead of herself.

Her whole arm itches as she pulls the pin on the extinguisher, but she’s already in motion.

\---------------------------

After Lena’s kiss (and the one after that, and the one after that) things are different. 

There is hair tingling against her elbow as she walks into her office and sets a coffee on Jess’s desk. 

There are eyelashes brushing her wrist during a board meeting.

There is a kiss, perfect and pink, on her forearm as she pages through lab notes with a duo of interns. 

There is a meandering Kryptonian love poem that stops and starts during a conference call. Lena has to drape papers over her arm to conceal all of it.

At the lab coffee machine, Lena uses a stir stick to mark the notes of a song on the inside of her arm. 

In the elevator, Lena clasps her hand around her left arm, squeezing firmly until she feels the same pressure returned.

As the clock ticks away her lunch break, Lena rubs her cheek on her forearm like a cat, then leaves a ruby kiss on her wrist. 

A formula she writes on her arm at midnight after working all day has a solution surrounded by a heart at seven in the morning.

 _Help me_ means ‘walk to work with me’, ‘carry these groceries’, ‘we’re out of donuts’, ‘the bed is cold without you’, ‘work will be there in the morning, dinner is here now’, ‘I need a flight home’.

“I love you,” covers almost everything else.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connecting-Kara

Kara feels her heart thundering in her throat, roaring almost as loud as the engines. There is nothing to cling to but the imperative that she MUST survive. It is the last thing every adult has told her and as tremors and engine vibrations wrack her pod, it feels as though these are the last words of Krypton itself. She begins a prayer to Rao but it chokes away as the rocket suddenly powers into the sky, past the crystal spires of her only home. She is leaving Rao. She is leaving Krypton, her parents, her friends, everything. 

They will die as she vanishes into the black and most of them will never understand why.

All of the tears she’s held back since the morning pour a river down her face. She has to focus on the other end of her journey, the enormous responsibility ahead of her. Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, is her destination. She cannot save her planet, but she and he can live in tribute to their people. She wants it to be a comforting thought, but it can’t overpower the sorrow she feels to her bones.

As has been her habit all through her life, she clasps her left arm. She was never Connected, her bare skin standing out starkly amidst her friends and her family. She wants to be glad that she doesn’t have a Connect to lose as well but that is even less helpful than trying to think of Kal. Thinking of how alone she has always been only makes her feel more isolated. She curses whatever malfunction cost her a Connect and just as she’s coming up with the worst invectives she has ever known, something rises under her fingers.

Alarms beep, signalling that the systems in place to put her in hyper sleep have engaged, but Kara raises her arm into the light. Her tears flow again at the sight of a single dark line, slashed along her forearm. She doesn’t know what it means, who it’s from or where they are. Her heart pounds with hope as she sets her fingers to her arm, feeling the drowsiness overcoming her. All she can think to write is ‘help me’. If they can, if they will...she doesn’t have time to finish the thought. 

Kara comes to bathed in harsh yellow light. There are alarms sounding all around her and the ship is in quite a state, but she feels physically fine. Panic rises in spite of her lack of pain as she remembers what happened. Her mission comes back to her-find Kal, protect him, make sure he is properly raised. Fear pushes back against duty. She wants to go to Kal but just as much she wants to hide here in her pod and grieve.

She is paralyzed for several minutes, trying to bring herself under control, to find her footing. Just before the pod made her sleep, she recalls that fleeting Connection. She studies her forearm again, feels a tiny brush of hope in her chest, and before she can reconsider, she’s written ‘hello’ on her arm. Kara holds her breath, focusing entirely on her skin, needing this small thing to be her anchor against the storm of emotion.

_Hello? I’m Lena._

She barely registers the alien language. Kara is suddenly sobbing, scribbling everything that comes into her head onto her arm, amazed and desperate for this lifeline to be real. This is how Kal finds her hours later, and this is how she is for several days to come.

\------------

Telepathy would come in so handy right now. Kara stares critically at her science fair display, knowing something is off and wishing Lena could look at it and tell her what she’s missing. Alex had to talk her down from her original idea-a guidance and targeting system for the rocket she built-so now it’s just a study of trajectories. The whole thing looks and feels very primitive compared to her studies on Krypton, but she did end up learning quite a bit about Earths wind and drag. 

Lena’s building the guidance system at her boarding school on the other side of the ocean. Kara wishes her near admission to the science academy was more useful, but most of the fine details she learned don’t apply on Earth. She looks at her arm and chews her lip, but there is no message. It’s nearly ten PM in Ireland. Lena’s probably in bed. She is tempted to write anyway, because her stomach is churning with nervousness.

“Hey Kara!” The boy next to her, Kenny, has done a project that involved dissecting things. Kara has been avoiding looking at it. She is extremely uncomfortable with the idea of cutting animals open to see their insides, especially since she and Alex watched ET. Turning towards him, she looks down and sees a frog, cut, splayed and pinned on wax just behind him. He asks her a question but she’s already too dizzy to hear. She can’t take her eyes off of the dead frog, even when they water and threaten to spill over with tears.

The rocket was supposed to guarantee she wouldn’t be anywhere near the biology projects, but as a grade nine she was pushed out to the edge of the physics displays. Her head spins and she leans back on her table, grabbing for her own arms instead of something more fragile. With her thumb she scribbles _help me_ again and again until her arm tingles with Lena’s answer. 

Kenny tries to touch her and she stumbles away, squeaking her apology before ducking under the fabric surrounding her table. She can just see Lena’s writing in the blue-tinted darkness. _Kara. Kara. Kara._. Just her name, over and over. 

She wipes her eyes with both hands, then scribbles _Hey._

_What happened?_

Kara tries to focus, but instead her brain only produces an image of herself, staked down naked to a table like that poor frog. _Why do humans have to cut everything up?_ She puts her other hand on her chest, reminding herself to breathe. 

_I don’t know. But that is never going to happen to you._. 

_You told me people would, like in that movie. I know that’s what Alex and mom and dad are afraid of. I know that’s why you don’t want me to come see you even though I know no one would catch me!_

There is a pause, then Lena’s writing returns. _I don’t want my family to know who you are. Because they agree with that sort of thing._. Another pause. Kara can just imagine her wrapped in quilts and lounging on pillows, sipping tea by the light of a flashlight as she stares seriously at her arm-Lena’s school is an actual castle, so Kara has always imagined her dorm room looking like the bedrooms in fantasy movies. _But not everybody is like them. There are more people like Alex and your parents than there are like my mom and dad. You know that. Even Lex wants to be friends with Superman._

Kara swipes at her eyes again. Her sadness and fear have given way to embarrassment. _Okay._

_I got an A on the guidance system. My programming instructor was really impressed. Did you get your mark back on your project?_

_I’m hiding under my table. We don’t get marked until tomorrow._

She imagines Lena rolling her eyes a bit, just like Alex does when she makes an ‘alien’ mistake. _You’ll get an A if you stop hiding._

The tablecloth shielding her from everyone else is brushed to the side. Kara blinks wide eyes at the grade ten science teacher, Mr. Nolan, as he offers her a hand. “Are you alright?” 

She pulls on her sleeve, covering Lena's writing. Her blush returns full force as she emerges from her hiding spot, turning her back on Kenny and his dead frog. “Yes,” she answers as Alex steps around him to give her shoulder a squeeze. “I’m okay. I just...the frog…”

Alex glares past her at Kenny, who holds up his hands to protest his innocence. “I just said hi!” He squeaks.

“Let’s move your display so you can’t see it,” Alex says, standing between Kara and Kenny’s project as they shuffle things around to block as much of the frog as they can. Kara’s murmurs of thanks earn her a quick hug before Alex rushes back to attend to her own project.

The rocket is worth an A.   
\-------------------------

“You’re too old to pout.” 

Kara doesn’t fix her expression, even when Eliza touches her shoulder. If she knew where Lex Luthor was, she’d punch him right into orbit right now. After he gave her Lillian and Lionel's address, of course, so she could sock it to them too. How is it any of their business if Lena comes to see her, or Kara goes to see Lena? Everyone else does it, everyone else has at least gotten to talk to their Connect by now! Kara has nothing and after their seventh attempt at reunion she’s starting to doubt she ever will. 

She knows why Lena doesn’t send her pictures or friend her on Facebook. Why all she knows is a basic description. Her family knows that Kara is Kryptonian and Lena doesn’t want them knowing anything else. She’s also keeping Kara from finding her-no way to just fly to Metropolis or Kerry or the Hamptons and scan every building unnoticed if Kara doesn’t know who she’s looking for. She hates how sensible it all is because a friend, however beloved, is not worth being vivisected.

“I’m not,” she says, slouching her shoulders and taking another cookie out of the box on her lap. She offers it to Eliza.

Crunching into the sweet, her mother pats her arm. “I’m sorry about your Reunion.”

Kara bites into another cookie. She made a bunch of her favorites for Lena, including the recipe she spent months perfecting. They were going to have a picnic and go for a hayride and…. she shuts her eyes and finishes the cookie. Now they’re doing nothing. “It’s not your fault.” The pout returns again. Eliza slings an arm around her shoulders and squeezes.

“Then whose fault is it?” Kara speaks around another cookie, because there’s no way she’s letting them go to waste. She’s already set aside a share for Alex. “It isn’t Lena’s fault.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest it was,” Eliza says. “She clearly wants a reunion.”

Kara bows her head. “Yeah, she does. So much.”

Her arm tingles and she wraps it around her waist. Eliza notices, rubs her arm once more and takes a cookie. “I’ll let you two talk,” she says, stepping back to the hallway. “Shout if you need anything.”

Kara only nods, shoving another cookie into her mouth before pulling back her sleeve.

Lena’s writing is extremely elegant. It’s pretty most of the time, but it’s clear she wrote this message carefully. _Please don’t hate me Kara._

She stares helplessly at the message, all of her resentment and frustration crumbling away at Lena’s obvious heartbreak. “Oh,” she says, her hand stopping before she picks up another sweet. “Lena…”

_I’m sorry._ Lena’s writing continues. _I’m so sorry._. Kara touches the message, trying to decide what to write back. She wants so much to hug her Connect, comfort her and tell her it will be alright. 

_I don’t hate you._

_I was so close._

_Next time I’ll just meet you halfway._

Her words linger. Three cookies are gone before Lena replies.

_There can’t be a next time. Not for a long time._

_No. I’ll come and find you, right now. This is so stupid, Lena, so stupid!_

_There’s something wrong with Lex._. The switch to Kryptonian makes the hair on the back of Kara’s neck stand up.

_What does that have to do with our reunion?_

_I don’t think he was actually waiting for me._

Kara sets down the cookie she is eating, brow furrowing at Lena’s words. Her stomach suddenly feels like lead. _Was he waiting for me?_

_I think so._. Kara stares at the cookie again, at her perfect, human-looking bite mark. _He’s obsessed with Kal. He keeps threatening him, sending him all of these messages._

_I thought they were friends? Did you tell him I’m Kal’s cousin?_

_Never. I promise Kara, I have never told any of them that._

She eats the rest of the cookie. _I can come and get you. Just tell me where you are, you can sneak out-_

Lena immediately overwrites her. _No, Kara. We can’t. We really can’t. I want to meet you so much but it is so dangerous._

_So we’ll just never see each other ever?_

She doesn't eat. She barely moves. She’s lost count of her breaths before her writing fades and Lena’s begins. _If that’s what we have to do._

One of the cookies shatters on her bedroom wall. _What if I got into your school? We’d be able to meet then._

_MIT acceptance letters came months ago, Kara. We can try in a year. We just have to wait._

\------------------------

Kara is awash in the morning sun and it feels like every cell in her body is pulsing to life at once. She’s never slept in a room with so many windows. The feeling is incredible, even more so once she remembers where she is and why. It is the day after her reunion, the day after Lena’s birthday. She’s finally, after all of this time, met her Connect. The circumstances were maybe a little less than ideal, but it happened! She opens her eyes to an apartment the size of her entire dorm floor, peeking over the back of the couch she slept on to survey the terrain. 

It is open concept, like something from a magazine. The dark leather furniture is immaculate, the floors and walls done in deep greys. The kitchen is all black marble and chrome. Near the couch she spent the night on is a sprawling oak desk, complete with laptop and desktop computers and the requisite neat pile of student notes. She considers paging through them, but her wrist tingles and she looks down at it instead. 

_Are you here or was that just a very nice cab driver?_

Kara giggles. This was not how either of them expected their reunion to happen. _I’m on the couch._

_Okay._ A door opens along the far wall. _You can come in. Bring water. Do not turn on the light._

It takes several minutes for Kara to find a pitcher and cups. The kitchen is even more imposing up close. She also unearths a tray, but checking in the fridge for some fruit only reveals a small collection of condiments and a single apple. She cuts it up and puts it on a plate anyway, along with some crackers she finds in a cupboard. 

When she reaches the bedroom, Lena is a vague lump buried under the comforter. The curtains are all pulled. Kara pauses in the doorway, uncertain how to proceed until the lump shifts and a very pale face peers out at her. “Kara?” 

“That’s me.” She pads across the carpet to sit on the side of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

Lena makes a sound that is somewhere between Kryptonian for ‘terrible’ and a general moan of displeasure. Kara holds out the water and instead of taking it, Lena worms along the bed until she can sip from it. “You shouldn’t have stayed,” she mumbles, more into her pillow than at Kara.

Kara rolls her eyes so hard she almost joins Lena in headache land. She is just not up for going over the same argument they’ve had for four years right now. Lena asked her for help, she came, no one stormed the apartment in the middle of the night waving kryptonite pitchforks over their heads. She sets the tray on the side table and drags the blankets over herself as well. “Shut up,” she says, wriggling into Lena’s personal space and wrapping her up in a hug.

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” Lena rasps, shoving her nose against Kara’s neck. Their bodies intertwine without a second thought and it feels so right they both pause to drink it in. It’s so comfortable it’s like cuddling with Alex, only Alex doesn’t usually smell like recycled tequila and sour milk. “You’re supposed to love me.”

“You puked on my shoes,” Kara points out. “I get one shut up.”

Lena chuckles and Kara’s smile is so bright at her laugh she worries she might actually be shining. “You’re prettier than I expected,” is what Lena follows with and Kara’s cheeks go redder than they ever have.

“Thanks,” she stammers. Lena sighs contentedly. “You...you already thought I was pretty?”

“Mhmm. Too sweet not to be.” 

The warmth of Lena’s body and the bed lulls her. She snuggles closer still and there is no objection from Lena. Kara has never felt more comfortable with another being before. She recalls something Kal told her once, that being close to his Connect felt more like home than anything he’d ever felt before, and something in her must agree. Curling up with Lena is the sort of comfort she hasn’t had since Krypton, terrible hangover breath and all. 

“Don’t leave,” Lena whispers in the stillness that settles between them. “You don’t have to.”

“I’m not. We’re going to bake cookies,” Kara promises.

“Don’t have any groceries.”

“We can go get some.”

The silence comes again, Lena’s breathing evening out briefly before she snorts and blinks back awake. “Why’m I in my gym clothes?” She mumbles into Kara’s shoulder. 

“I couldn’t find regular pyjamas,” Kara replies, rubbing her back. “Just fancy ones.”

“Uh uh.”

Kara blinks. There was a lot of lace in that drawer. A lot of satin. She can feel her cheeks burn. “Those are your regular pyjamas?”

“Uh huh.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Yeah you will.” Lena does not stay awake long enough to see the brilliant crimson result of her automatic flirt. She passes out solidly on Kara’s chest, snoring her way back to sleep.

\------------------------

The heights of National City are chilly as autumn begins. Kara isn’t sensitive to the temperature, but the seasonal shift and the change in light tugs at her. Autumn is a melancholy time as the sun rises less and the moon sticks around longer. She feels slower and calmer, which takes her in a contemplative direction as often as not.

Laying on top of the library, Kara stares at the darkening sky. She owes the DEO a night of patrolling, but this is a good spot to hear the city. For the time being, it will be fine. There are no sirens, no screams, nothing that even resembles a scuffle. It’s a rare slice of peace, but in the early fall air it feels more like loneliness.

She lifts her arm and bares it. _Are you doing anything?_

Seconds tick by. No answer comes. Kara pooches her lip and crosses her legs, then folds her hands behind her head. She stares at the rising moon, studying the landscape and counting the footprints. Then she looks for satellites, making sure the number hasn’t changed and that none of them are up to any shenanigans.

She’s down to identifying bird calls when her forearm tingles. Shutting out the dullest warbler she’s ever heard, Kara bares her arm again, smiling even though Lena can’t see. 

_I’m sorry, I’m on a date!_

The smile tips. A date? Lena hadn’t mentioned a date before, Kara is certain. She chews her lip and fidgets. It’s tempting to just pull her sleeve, pretend the message isn’t there, act like she didn’t see it at all. Lena doesn’t need to tell her when she goes on dates, after all. It’s a nice thing to know, but since when is that Kara’s business? If she had a date she wouldn’t tell Lena.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

Just because Kara has told her every single previous time didn’t mean she always will.

And Lena is fun and stylish and good at making an impression so it isn’t like she’d need Kara’s help with outfits or makeup. For a date. With another person. That’s silly.

_Is everything okay? I can come over?_ Kara’s skyward pout folds at Lena’s genuine concern. She is being silly, getting all worked up about Lena going out with someone. She guffaws at nothing, just to drive the point home to her audience of zero.

_No! I’m okay!_ The sky is no help. She briefly considers giving the LCorp satellite a zap, then chastises herself. Getting Lena dragged back to work isn’t fair or especially mature. 

_Do you mind checking her out?_

She’s flying before she knows where she’s going and some apartment dwellers get an interesting view of Supergirl drifting along on her side, scribbling on her forearm with her fingertip as she swerves to avoid their building. _Sure, where?_

_Upper Crust._

Kara huffs and someone’s wind chime is lost to the street below. Turning slowly in the air, she angles herself towards Lena’s favorite pizza place, a goofy little hole in the wall by the NCTech dorms. This is not a first date-Lena would never choose somewhere so casual while she was just getting to know someone. They have four singing fish on the wall behind the cash register. 

Kara may have spent a little too much time working out how to get them singing in a round not so long ago.

Because she’d never seen Lena laugh so hard that her hair came undone.

She circles the block slowly, scanning cars and alleys, before she rises up and focuses on the pizza place. Through brick and steel, she spots Lena sitting at a table, her hands wrapped around a pint of beer. She is speaking, her eyebrows rising and falling with the tale. A cooled pan pizza, half-eaten, covers most of the table, and Kara’s stomach rumbles at the sight of the roasted vegetables and cheese. The date is chewing through a slice, grinning at Lena as she talks. 

Kara frowns at the building, studying the date closely from her vantage point. She looks for anything at all that she has that this interloper does not, but the pickings are slim. Point one in the date’s favor is that the date is very cute. She has an undercut and knows how to style it and her collared shirt and pressed slacks have an effortless charm to them. Even her shoes, shiny black leather, are perfect. Kara wishes she could look so cool and composed sitting across from Lena. Point two, the date is smiling at Lena and Lena is smiling back. Kara drifts a little to get a better look at the date’s face and can’t help pouting at the genuine interest and affection she sees there. Lena’s eyes sparkle with cheer when the date comments on her story and then Lena laughs, covering her mouth with her hand.

Point three, when the laughter finishes, Lena catches the date’s hand in her own and rubs her thumb back and forth. There could be an explosion the next block over and Kara wouldn’t blink. Her belly is a sore pit and her jaw is tense. She’s crossed her arms over her chest, hanging midair in a pose of judgement. She wants to land and storm in anyway, to bluster at the date until she leaves National City completely and never returns. 

A look at Lena’s small, bashful smile loosens Kara’s tensed back. She can't be upset, not when Lena looks so happy. Craning her neck skyward she groans quietly to herself and tugs her sleeve back. The night sounds rush her ears as she tries to decide what to write, though one in particular stays her hand. Peering back into the restaurant, Kara focuses not on Lena or the date, but on the date’s bag, tucked under the table. She looks past the fashionable distressed leather to the interior and her heart sinks when she spots an active recording device inside. If this was an interview or a discussion, she’s positive Lena would have mentioned it.

_She’s recording you,_ Kara writes as small as she can, as though the microphone might pick up the sound of her message. Giving up on hovering, she sets gently down on the roof of the dorm next to the pizzeria. Her eyes remain trained on the scene within, waiting for Lena to see what she’s told her, wishing she hadn’t noticed it at all. She wanted to be more impressive and desirable than the date, not reveal that this was yet another sham relationship constructed to deceive her Connect. 

The date dabs sauce from the corner of Lena’s lips, then stands to walk to the restroom. Kara holds her breath as Lena turns her wrist up to read the message written on it once she’s gone. The smile dies. Her back straightens. Kara feels like she’s been stabbed when Lena leans over and opens the bag. She stares at its contents, blinking twice, then picks up the recorder and speaks quietly into the microphone. Kara studies the contents of the dumpster on the ground below her, listening very intently to a cat rustling through the alley.

Her exit is quick. Lena leaves a generous tip alongside the payment for the meal, then gathers her things and walks out briskly. It’s apparent she chooses her direction at random, taking a left at the corner, then another left towards the campus grounds. 

_Do you have time to take me home?_

Kara does. She always does, even as she’s feeling guilty and upset for ruining Lena’s date. Lena is too wrapped in the betrayal to notice Kara frowning and by the time she’s landed on the balcony Kara has that under control. They don’t say anything-Kara sends a short report to Alex while Lena makes popcorn and in no time they are draped in the cape and some blankets on the couch. 

They agree that evening that undercuts are for people who are trying too hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So I wrote this forever ago, could not come up with a final segment, but I liked it too much not to post what I got. There are some formatting and technical issues I want to iron out once I’m on an actually computer, but I hope you enjoy this anyway!


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